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Originally written for my personal blog, www.AnnieJackson.me

I have this absolutely amazing book. It is called The Science of Sexy and I feel like every dressmaker, Etsy seller, and designer who plans to design for niche groups should have it. It's only $12.50 on Amazon so you really have no excuse, btw. The author of this book is a special occasion wear designer for a whole host of A-list names and has developed a scientific way of breaking down people's body types into categories based on their measurements (so you do not have to visually look at them to decide). Using measurements there are 12 groups you could belong to, and then within each group your body could be of 4 shapes. This gives a total of 48 categories which are discussed and illustrated! Amazon has a look inside, but as usual it sucks so I've included a couple of (really bad quality) photos below so that you can see what you get.

Here is the index page for all the body categories. The previous pages explained how to determine your group (colour) and your body shape:

Within the body types the author then breaks each body type down into what cut lines and colours look good on it and demonstrates by using the same body to illustrate two looks. One look makes the body look bad, the other look is very flattering! Since posting my plus-sized survey the other day there have been a number of comments from plus sized ladies that they wish clothing companies would just make clothes in their size. These ladies are frustrated and I don't think anyone has every really demonstrated why clothing companies just can't do this -- why a lot of the clothing would not sell and thus the company would need to produce new styles and patterns. A company can not simply produce 3 or 4 of it's 12 item line in a larger size, it doesn't work that way because if they don't offer everything in all sizes they will loose clients and the styles that are offered in bigger sizes will not be sold (because those customers won't be in the store). So, for a company to offer plus sizes they need new designs that are flattering to all body shapes, new patterns, and also new fit models and therefore new samples. It's really expensive not to mention difficult to design a line that will flatter both smaller and larger sizes. This is the main reason companies do not simply grade up their sizes. I'm going to use my really bad quality photos from The Science of Sexy to demonstrate this.

Unfortunately my physical copy of this book is back in Canada and I have only scans I made before coming to the Netherlands to show you. I did not expect to need the "what not to wear" photos so they are cut off on most pages. I was only able to find one that showed the what not to wear illustration well enough to demonstrate my point. Look at the photo below. On the left you will see the what not to wear. This is an article of clothing which looks bad on this specific body. This outfit would look fantastic on others but not good on this body. Now look at the right side, these are styles, cuts and colours which flatter. (Click for a larger version)

You'll notice that the clothes in the what not to wear are not that ugly and in fact are similar to one of the other outfits. But the square nearly-off-shoulder neckline and also the higher hem length of the shirt make the body look bulky. The eye is drawn to the shoulder and hips in the what not to wear photo and in the similar outfit (#1) on the right page the eye is drawn down to the cleavage and the knee. Both outfits are using the same colours, same weight of fabric, and even the same croquis as the body underneath the clothing (they are mirror images of each other). Unfortunately with what limited scans I have of this book on my computer right now this is the best I can do to illustrate this point but I hope it helps get you thinking about why they can not simply grade up styles. There are a lot of clothing styles which would be unflattering in plus sizes which means they would not sell. Not only would they loose money on sales they would also loose all their development costs such as the new patterns, new samples, paying at least one new fit model, etc. Development is extremely expensive. For those of you who are interested in the book I mentioned above, here are a couple more photos. For each body type there are 4 pages (two 2-page spreads). The picture above is the 2nd 2-page spread. Here is the 1st 2-page spread for this body type:

So, if you are only one person and you don't sew for others this book might not be helpful to you because you will only find less than 10 pages relevant. However if you are interested in style or you sew or design, I really recommend you have this in your library. The book also contains some technical flat drawings to demonstrate the clothing words that he uses (for instance if he says you should avoid "boatnecks" you can go look at the drawing to find out what a boatneck is). For newbie designers these drawings are helpful on a totally different level! It's always great to see examples of flats you can learn from :)

 

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